Menonday Art Vibe; An Artist's Process

Last Friday, I shared some images of a piece of wood that had 'history'. It was sitting in the garden of Mac1's home, and she had plans for it. As long-termers here will know, my sister has spent much of her last ten years taking courses (and qualifications) in embroidery and quilting. During that time, part of the course required that the students learn skills in creating their own fabric patterns with the use of various printing techniques... and Mac1, being who she is, followed that path further and further, so that now printing has become her favoured and much-practised art medium. 

On this one, before getting out the ink, she took a graphite rubbing, as this gives a good idea of what might be obtained once the (expensive) inks are employed. This produces a 'positive' image. When printing, a 'negative' is obtained.

Inking is done by use of a glass plate, rollers (sometimes sponging), and very careful placement, as that stuff sticks! Several prints are taken from the 'master' (on this afternoon, it was a total of five). After, to use up the ink remaining on the plate, marks are made and further prints created - I show just one here, but they all came out beautifully and each with it's own characteristics.

Interestingly, I used to do quite a lot of rubbings and screen-printing (decades ago!), and my fingers were itching a bit being in amongst all this creativity. I did use some of her various items to take some rubbings and then added some dimension with use of a black marker pen. The result is a slightly apocalyptic scene, but I am pleased enough with it to have placed it in the van for any who visit to see... and thus you have a glimpse of the diversions the Mac Clan are inclined to!

MenoSundays; Life Lived Lovingly

Menokreatikkul; Saturday Stitches

Continuing the drive to use up the Stylecraft budget yarn, most of which is 'not a lot' left, so some craftiness required to make any meaningful item. First, a simple stranded colourwork beanie, which I was very happy with and has already been gifted to a young man for his birthday...

The next one also had to use two yarns to ensure completion... and I got all experimental in my stitching. Having enjoyed the woven stitch did on the lime/aqua item I shared here last week, I wondered how I might incorporate something of the weaving yarn in colourwork - that is to say, much tighter than standard floats, deliberately tensioned to create a texture on the front of the work. The effect is lush to the touch and resembles seersucker material. 

The yarns were twisted around each other every second (occasionally third) stitch, making a netting effect on the back of the work. It was intriguing to do, and the textural feel to the hand is rather lovely. However, I am glad I wasn't doing anything more than a simple beanie, because it was quite hard on the hands, working at a tension much tighter than my usual. There was a notion that this could be a nice detail for a yoke on a sweater or smock, but I would need to keep practising to find a rhythm and tension point that works more easily than I gave myself in this first attempt.

That all said, the beanie came out quite nicely. If there was one thing I'd change in this design, it might be to add a marker line, either a couple of rows of purl stitches or a couple of plain rows in the contrast colour, to better define the simple stocking stitch band from the textured stitching. As it is, some might be tempted to think it was just very untidy knitting!

It really isn't, though. I did achieve something of what I had wanted with this textural attempt, but it is entirely possible that some decent deep dive into stitch libraries may well offer me something similar with easier practice... but I'm not in a hurry to do it again right now. 

Just mentioning the weaving technique I used on the earlier beanie... F did ask how it was done, so I will put a little video together demonstrating what I did. That was again an experiment, and it definitely made a nice detail... so keep watching!